No one I know, who have bought cheap items such as the red epic gems in cata, have ever been banned for it, nor have they had their items taken away, or their gold returned.

This is what I have experienced as well. The duper is the problem and the one getting banned. The dupee doesn't know that what he is buying is duped (sure they might have a clue), but Blizz will usually just take away the items - maybe return your gold. I am sure someone could get banned for buying duped items, but I would think it would be an extreme situation where blizz has some sort of proof they knew what they were buying.

People keep tossing the word dupe around like they know it for fact. If these items are being duplicated, then this is a hole in blizzards security. If they are just stolen from unsecured accounts, then this is a hole in the individuals security. Neither of these can be dumped onto the buyer as if it's the buyers fault that the seller duped/stole the items. "Too good to be true, dont do it"; that's a bit silly, nothing in the game has an actual set value aside from the vendor prices, any other value is purely an imaginary mark-up by the seller. So to say something that normally sells for 3k gold going for 1k gold MUST be duped/stolen/will get me banned, is just retarded. The solution to this is something blizzard will need to fix on their end, so that these magically duped items cannot be traded/sold/transfered, rather than going through and axe murdering every buyer, even if it was too good to be true...

If they are from hacked accounts, you are probably safe, although I wouldn't push it too far. Blizzard can get ban happy sometimes, especially if it allows getting gear easier, or they see individuals making huge sums of gold selling them. Blizzard isn't stupid, they know most people are going to call when they ban them, and then they can decided to reopen the account or not. They also know there is a pretty good chance they are gonna make another account anyways even if it gets banned, so no sweat off their backs.

It all really just depends on how far the want to take it when they start banning and where they want the cut off to be. Its really just a matter of hoping you don't cross that line.

People keep tossing the word dupe around like they know it for fact. If these items are being duplicated, then this is a hole in blizzards security. If they are just stolen from unsecured accounts, then this is a hole in the individuals security. Neither of these can be dumped onto the buyer as if it's the buyers fault that the seller duped/stole the items. "Too good to be true, dont do it"; that's a bit silly, nothing in the game has an actual set value aside from the vendor prices, any other value is purely an imaginary mark-up by the seller. So to say something that normally sells for 3k gold going for 1k gold MUST be duped/stolen/will get me banned, is just retarded. The solution to this is something blizzard will need to fix on their end, so that these magically duped items cannot be traded/sold/transfered, rather than going through and axe murdering every buyer, even if it was too good to be true...

When Blizz banns him because he bought duped items than yes, we know it for a fact...why would Blizz lie to him, they can bann him without giving a reason if they want to so lying would be pointless.

Please do tell, how do you think they need to fix this? All they can do is try to find the bug before it spreads out to much and search for people who used it for personal gain. You sound like a smart-ass who thinks a company can just solve a problem within 5 seconds.

If they were from hacked accounts, they wouldn't JUST be Blood Spirits; they'd be all kinds of stuff. But they're just this one thing, and one thing only. This implies to me that there's some way people are duping them, something that only affects Blood Spirits and not, say, Robes of Eternal Rule. Even if it's not strictly a dupe, there's some kind of exploit happening.

Also, the level 1's selling them don't put them on the AH; it's all direct sales through the trade channel. That suggests to me that they're doing something they know will get them caught and their account closed, and they need to sell the Blood Spirits and shuffle the gold to another account before the one they're using is locked.

I'm a shameless AH profiteer myself; I'm always looking for a chance to buy low, sell high. As I put it, some people are good at PvP, some are good at PvE, I'm good at PvAH. When the whole Blood Spirit thing started, I talked to one of the sellers. I make a lot of money off people who are trying to sell a ton of some profitable item because they want to buy flying or something and will sell stacks of stuff below market price to raise money in a hurry, so anyone with a stack of rares to sell gets my interest. And I, the shameless profiteer, wouldn't do business with the guy because everything about him -- level 1 character, randomly generated name, enormous number of Blood Spirits to sell, nothing else to sell, can't speak much English, and incredibly persistent, to the point where he was offering me stacks of the things for less than half his original asking price -- sent up way too many red flags.

Frankly, anyone who buys something for 1/3 of its AH price from a guy who has stacks of them, and only them (and who seems to have tremendous difficulty with speaking English beyond "you buy? i ten stacks"), knows there's something fishy about the transaction. If they're buying anyway and reselling for a profit, I would hope that Blizzard would ban them along with the people who duped them or otherwise exploited them into existence. If someone buys a few to make some armor that might only rate a strongly worded letter, but anyone making money off this, knowing it's an exploit, is little better than the people doing it.

We're not idiots; we know an exploit when we see it. If you have to ask "is it wrong to do thus-and-such?" the answer is yes.

Whether or not Blizzard has banned people for this, well, I've heard both ways. I don't know. But I, for one, am not going to risk it. I never forget that Blizzard can ban anyone at any time for any reason, or for no reason at all, and is in no way constrained by "they should fix the problem, not ban the people who exploit it" or similar platitudes. I like my account the way it is, and if Blizzard is going to penalize people for participating in an exploit, I have no intention of being one of them. YMMV.

A guildy got a perma ban a week ago for buying duped items, as said above "if it sounds to good to be true..it probably is".

My guildy didn't know nor did he gave it a second thought...I know it was a stupid move but he got banned being the middle guy. Blizz can't know weither you lie or not, they can only take your word for it.